A grass-roots challenge to the UID project

Awareness is the first challenge the ambitious programme has encountered at the grass-roots level and while it will encounter more challenges, this is something the UIDAI, which oversees Aadhaar, needs to address quickly as it increases the scale and scope of its effort.

Karen Leigh

Kibbanahalli, Karnataka: One humid day in May, in a small building off the main road, Manjola, a farm worker, sat at a small wooden table, pressing her fingers, one at a time on an electronic pad that scanned and stored her prints.

She is among the first Indians to be enrolled in the unique identity programme (UID), or Aadhaar, which seeks to provide at least 600 million residents with a universal government identity by 2011.

The only problem is that Manjola knows nothing about the programme in which she is being registered.

Awareness is the first challenge the ambitious programme has encountered at the grass-roots level and while it will encounter more challenges, this is something the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), which oversees Aadhaar, needs to address quickly as it increases the scale and scope of its effort.

Manjola hadn’t heard of Aadhaar or UIDAI.

“No one has told me anything about it. I don’t know who’s in charge of it,” she said, leaning forward in her chair as her retinas are scanned, the second and final step in the biometric data gathering process. “My children’s school teacher told me there was a programme to give my children an ID, so I came because I knew that would be good for them.”

Aadhaar met its initial target in this part of Karnataka; at least 2,200 residents of Kibbanahalli—and 25,000 in the Tumkur district—registered for the 12-digit Aadhaar numbers in a “proof of concept” study, a test ahead of the programme’s national roll-out, from August through next February.

Similar tests were carried out in Andhra Pradesh and Bihar.

The month-long Tumkur project, which concluded on Thursday, showed two or three clerical mistakes per 100 registrants.

“There will be mistakes because it’s early on,” said Raju S.K., a teacher who participated in both rounds of the test. “My name was written wrong; a wrong initial.”

But the larger issue, if Tumkur is any indication, is awareness, especially among the rural poor whom UIDAI chairman Nandan Nilekani has said will be the programme’s biggest beneficiaries.

The UIDAI’s communication and awareness team plans a large-scale education push for the weeks leading up to the test’s start in August.

But with limited trained personnel on the ground, it could be an uphill battle.

Vijay Mahajan, chairman of Hyderabad-based Basix, which works to promote microfinance innovation in rural areas, said that in the absence of a structured education programme, word of mouth among rural residents would be crucial.

“The first few million people who get a UID will end up educating their neighbours, and slowly it will spread,” he said. “They won’t know it conceptually, or just because they enrolled. They’ll know about it after they’ve had some experience using it.”

In Kibbanahalli, the only visible sign of Aadhaar’s presence was one UIDAI sign, set far back from the road at the door to an enrolment site.

At another centre where data was being collected, there was no signage and no lighting. Several residents waiting in line to have their biometrics recorded said they didn’t know what a unique identity was and had never heard of Nilekani or the project.

During the early stages, turnout was so thin in Kibbanahalli that local officials began doing everything in their power to draw in registrants.

Adarsha S.S., a programme supervisor in Tumkur, said this included the practice of telling residents to bring their government-issued ration cards to one of the Aadhaar enrolment sites, without first telling them that once there, their fingerprints and retinas would be scanned for a UID.

“People came on a small scale before, during the first round,” he said. “Then we told them to bring their ration cards, and they began coming more.”

Nanja Muri, the village accountant in Kibbanahalli, highlighted the dearth of manpower in rural areas.

He said that only district revenue inspectors—in Tumkur, he added, there is only one overseeing 48 villages—had been sufficiently trained by government officials to educate residents, and that village accountants in the district had taken it upon themselves to spread the word among residents.

Muri’s own grass-roots effort included a small musical band that walked the streets, drawing people out of their homes to explain the fundamentals of UID and provide them with application forms.

Kathye Yini, a local housewife who had just been registered for a unique identity, said she had learned of the programme through Muri, who knocked on her door one night.

She added that it was her neighbours—and not government officials—who were responsible for her limited knowledge of the programme’s benefits.

When asked about the impact a UID would have on her life, she only knew that, unlike the ration and voter ID cards she currently possessed, a UID would give her proof of address if she travelled outside Karnataka.

UIDAI officials are not surprised about the initial responses.

“It’s a slim organization compared to the width and breadth of India,” said K.K. Sharma, assistant director general of UIDAI’s regional office in Bangalore. “We were expecting teething mistakes.”

He said that by August, fewer than 30 UIDAI staffers would be working in the regional headquarters in Bangalore, overseeing three states, two Union territories and at least 150 million residents.

Sharma declined comment on the issue of lack of publicity.

However, an official, who did not want to be named, said that the proof of concept was only meant to be a technical test of the biometric machines and overall enrolment process, and not meant to be about explaining the programme to people. In the next month, UIDAI’s awareness council will be submitting its report on the communication strategies it should employ to increase awareness among rural residents.

Sunil Abraham, executive director of the Centre for Internet and Society, who has opposed the programme as well as the government’s decision to have Nilekani head it, said it was troubling that residents did not comprehend why they were providing their personal information.

Basix’s Mahajan said that given the advantages the programme would eventually bestow on them, people would learn, though it would be of their own accord.

“When the first woman to be registered for a UID in a village sticks her finger on a biometric device and is able to access banking with it, she’ll get excited and will tell her friends,” he said. “And thus UID will spread.”

karen.l@livemint.com

Home proposes caste count after census

Revising its stand on the issue of caste census, the Union home ministry has said that the best time to go for a caste based headcount—if there is a decision to that effect—would be after tabulation of census figures and during the biometric capture phase when photographs, fingerprints and iris mapping of citizens for the National Population Register is done.

The ministry has given its view in an amended note that will be put up for discussion before the Cabinet on Wednesday. This is a major shift in position since it had vehemently opposed caste-based census in an earlier note. It also reflects the realisation, in the backdrop of the recent debate in Parliament on the issue, that there is a wider political constituency favouring it.

At his press conference on Monday, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said that a decision on caste census would be taken by the Cabinet after taking note of the opinion expressed during the Parliament debate. The note for the Cabinet states that the caste data collected will be anonymised, i.e. anonymity will be preserved like in the case of AIDs screenings. It has, though, suggested that this job be entrusted to the ministry of social justice and empowerment and the ministry of tribal affairs or be examined by an expert group. The reason, it says, is because neither the Census Commission of India (CCI) nor the Office of the Registrar General (ORG) has the expertise to classify caste returns in such manner.

The MHA note poses two questions for the perusal of Cabinet ministers. One, whether the policy decision of not collecting and publishing data on castes other than SC and ST should be reversed and a question on caste be included in the questionnaire for Census 2011 to be conducted from February 9 to 28. And two, whether the question on caste should be taken up when biometrics—photographs, iris mapping and fingerprinting—is done.

“On balance, if a decision is to canvass question of caste, the best time to do so is during the biometric capture phase of National Population Register as headcount will be completed by then,” the note says. Since everyone who is above 15 years will have to be present at the camps where the biometrics will be taken, taking their caste details would be easier, it says. Details of all those below the age of 15 could be taken from the head of the household....

Think about it....

Computerized Gods - And the Age of Information

by

J. Weizenbaum Ph.D.

One of the most distinguished computer scientists in the world today, Prof. J. Weizenbaum is known for his major contributions to the field of Artificial Intelligence. He authored the famous ELIZA program (fore-runner of DOCTOR and other similar programs) which startlingly demonstrated the possibilities for building 'intelligent effects' into a computer through programming. Weizenbaum is also the author of Computer Power and Human Reasoning from Calculation to Judgement in which he critically examines the far-reaching social implications of research and philosophical assumptions regarding artificial intelligence.

Prof. Weizenbaum obtained his Ph.D. degree from the Wayne State University in Detroit. After a few years in the industry, he entered the Massachussets Institute of Technology where he has held faculty positions since 1955. He is currently a professor in the department of Computer Sciences at MIT. His current research interests include Artificial Intelligence and social implications of computing and cybernetics.

As many have observed, modern science has become a religion, at least for Western man. Like other religions, it has a priesthood, roughly organized on hierarchical lines. It has temples, shrines, and rituals and it has a body of canons. And. like other religions, it has its own mythology. One myth in particular states that if, say, by experiment a scientific theory is confronted in reality with a single contradiction, one piece of discontinuing evidence, then that theory is automatically set aside and a new theory that takes the contradiction into account is adopted. This is not the way science actually works.

In fact, some people have the same type of very deep faith in modern science that others do in their respective religions. This faith in science, grounded in its own dogma, leads to a defense of scientific theories far beyond the time any disconfirming evidence is unearthed. Moreover, disconfirming evidence is generally not incorporated into the body of science in an open-minded way but by an elaboration of the already existing edifice (as, for example, by adding epicycles) and generally in a way in which the resulting structure of science and its procedures excludes the possibility of putting the enterprise itself in jeopardy. In other words, modem science has made itself immune to falsification in any terms the true believer will admit into argument.

Perhaps modern science's most devastating effect is that it leads its believers to think it to be the only legitimate source of knowledge about the world. Being a high priest, if not a bishop, in the cathedral of modern science— my university, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology —I can testify that a great many of what we sometimes like to call "the MIT family," faculty and students, believe that there is indeed no legitimate source of knowledge about the world other than modern science. This is as mistaken a belief as the belief that one cannot gain legitimate knowledge from anything other than religion. Both are equally false.

Until recently, modern science, seen as a religion, lacked a deity suitable as an object of worship. The machine, which is generally pictured as something that has gears, moving parts, and so on, has existed for a long time now. To modern man the machine certainly represents power, control, mastery over nature-in other words, attributes a worshipable deity should have. But the machine lacks mystery. In fact, it often demystifies in the sense that people believe that most anything can be transformed, metaphorically at least, into the form of a machine and then understood as such. The machine has become an almost universally applicable metaphor that demystifies both itself and the thing to which it refers. This thinking holds true for both intellectuals of all persuasions as well as for ordinary people. Perhaps most people today think a thing is not understood until it has been reduced to a mechanical process.

I think that this phenomenon has contributed to science's inability to provide an idol which the faithful can worship as truly representative of their common faith. Now recently, within my lifetime, the computer has appeared, and it seems to me that the computer fills that need. Modern man has seen that machines which physically destroy and reconstruct his environment — the steam-shovel, for example — are made in his own image. The steam-shovel has an arm and a hand, and it digs into the ground, picks up objects and so forth. Clearly, it is a kind of imitation of a certain aspect of man. But the computer takes things a step farther. When instructing a computer to think (if I may use that term for a moment) in imitation of human thought, we cross a subtle line. Artificial Intelligence top

Generally speaking, before writing a computer program, one believes that one knows how to solve the presenting problem and how to instruct the computer in such a way as to cause it to do what one has in mind. This is not always an easy task. Programs often don't work properly and have to be debugged. That is, errors have to be removed — usually a long process. It's a process of writing, and while writing, one learns. One sits down, believing one knows just what it is one wants to write, just how to program the computer, and in the act of attempting to give instructions, one discovers that one lacks understanding. In this way, one's knowledge may be improved just by the attempt to program a computer. In any case, once the computer is properly instructed, there is certainly a feeling — and I think it has some solidity — that the computer behaves in the image of man in the sense that one has taught it "to think" (again I use that word) like a human being and to do what a human being would do to solve that particular problem.

But, as I said, this leads to the crossing of a very subtle line, and after running over that line during programming, the first impression many people get is that the person is inferior to the computer — that the programmer is in some way a defective imitation. And in certain ways the computer is better than human beings. This is what gives rise to the feeling, not that the computer is made in the imitation of man, but, quite the other way around, that in a certain sense man is made in the image of the computer. So we may start out by thinking that the computer is modeled after the brain or human thought, but then we turn around and say instead that the brain itself is a kind of computer. For example, yesterday someone pointed to his head and said, "the computer up here." Perhaps it was intended as an amusing gesture, but at the same time, it was an almost universally recognized comment, one which is, I think, quite serious and, under the circumstances, dangerous.

Artificial intelligence is the sub-discipline of computer science that has grown up in the United States. At this stage, and I would say even mainly at my institution, it is seen as a purer form of intelligence than that within this human embodiment. The computer is considered less likely to be misled by mere judgments and other matters arising from the biological constitution of the human being. I am thinking here of some of my colleagues' views. For example. Forester, of great model-making fame, said in print that mental models are always defective, that we can think better and more reliably through a computer.

Obviously, then, the conclusion we must come to is that while sentimental people argue that God is love, the tough modern man, or at least the tough modern Western man, knows that God is really intelligence. I hope it is very clear that I totally disagree with this position. It is, however, the dogma of a for-the-moment-victorious "religion" that worships intelligence and its embodiment in the computer. This "religion" pronounces an apocalyptic prophecy. According to this prophecy — which certainly has a basis in reality — the earth's people will one day destroy themselves and their gene pool.

Of course the whole human race is in an extremely dangerous situation. The likelihood that we will in fact destroy ourselves is much too large to ignore. It is very, very real. Some of us —I hope most of us — who have struggled against it certainly don't believe that it is an inevitable or desirable end to the human story. But when one accepts, as many of my colleagues do, that intelligence is in some sense the purpose of the universe, that God is intelligence, not love, that, to put it another way, the purpose (if one may use that term at all) of organic evolution is not the perfection and adaption of living organisms to their changing environment but rather the perfection and growth of intelligence in the universe, then the extinction of the human race also becomes an acceptable end.

Strange as it may sound, I emphasize again that this view is very widely held among scientists and intellectuals in the United States. Accepting the thesis means that one accepts that the destruction of the human gene pool is not a catastrophe at all, provided, of course, that we, the human race, have assured the continuation of intelligence beyond the human level. In fact, according to some of my colleagues, we have already accomplished this. Even if the earth blows up in an atomic holocaust, we have now sent computers into space which will continue to orbit, to make their computations and so on. Soon, according to this apocalyptic vision, these computers will be able to reproduce themselves, and when they do, the human race will have accomplished its purpose.

This is a satanic vision. In that new Utopia. God will have eliminated the source and power of evil from the universe, and what remains will be a mechanical kingdom in which truth with a capital "T" and righteousness, or pure intelligence, can reign undisturbed forever. This reasoning, which, as I said, is more or less explicitly gaining dominance amongst scientists, technologists and many intellectuals, is a philosophical foundation on the basis of which the destruction of the human species, a very realistic threat, becomes defensible. In a certain sense, It provides a philosophically tilled soil in which the idea of an absolute genocide becomes thinkable. It argues that the purpose of the universe is the evolution of ever higher forms of intelligence. At the moment we happen to be carriers. As perhaps the most highly developed intelligence in the universe, we've now succeeded in creating our truly worthy successors: computers. We have the tools of destruction in our hands, but we've sent computers into timeless, endless space, and thus, having fulfilled our destiny, we have no reason to grieve over the probable death of our species.

At precisely this time, this murderous theology invades the human mind and spirit. Those who propagate this idolatry — and that's what it is, idolatry — and who themselves venerate the machine in the sense that I have described, who themselves can't see what seems to me so perfectly obvious —that there is a difference between humans and machines, and between human thought and machine thought — risk in my view becoming full conspirators in the murder of God.

STOP AADHAR

Crime of the Century

Barcode of Life: Global Biodiversity Challenge

Poland Installs Europe's First Biometric Fingerprint-Scanning ATM Machine

Given the financial situations in Greece, Spain, and Portugal in recent weeks, the Euro Zone has plenty of reason to be down on itself. But Poland is showing a bit of financial-sector flash this week, becoming the first nation in Europe to install biometric ATM machines that read fingerprints rather than magnetic cards.

Poland's BPS SA bank set a European -- and if we're not mistaken, a Western -- milestone by installing the biometric cash machine in Warsaw, where customers can withdraw money with nothing more than their index fingers and their PIN numbers.

The machines work on "finger vein" technology, rather than the topographical signature of a customer's finger. The scanning technology, developed by Japanese tech company Hitachi, records the tiny veins that run through fingertips to create a unique identifier for each customer.

Only one biometric machine is currently operating in Poland, though BPS plans to deploy three or four more of the ATMs in Warsaw before year's end. About 200 more will end up in more than 350 bank branches there in coming years.

Though the Japanese have been using the technology for a little while now, this marks the first major commitment to institute biometric security standards by a large Western bank, as well as the first indicator that such technology may soon wash up on American shores.

Sensitive health records to be stored on national database

PATIENTS' sensitive health records, including test results and prescriptions, will be stored on a national database accessible over the internet, in a controversial new eHealth scheme that will cost taxpayers $467 million to set up over the next two years.

The federal government is trying to hose down alarm over privacy by rebranding its planned e-Health scheme the "personally controlled electronic health record system", and insisting that patients will be able to control what information is fed into the database, and who can access it.

Patients will be given the choice of opting in to the system, even though all Australians will automatically be given a new identification number that can be linked to their medical records.

The budget papers say patients will be able to access their eHealth records when and where needed.

"Australian consumers and authorised healthcare providers (will be able to) access their personally controlled electronic health records via the internet," the papers state. "It will help reduce avoidable hospital admissions, adverse healthcare incidents relating to medication mismanagement, and the need for duplicate tests and procedures because original results are not available between care settings."

Pharmacists will be paid 15c every time they dispense a prescription downloaded from the database, to encourage a phasing-out of scrawled paper prescriptions -- a measure the budget papers show will cost taxpayers an extra $75m over five years.

But the system depends on co-operation from the states and territories which, the papers say, "will need to continue their planned or expected investments in core health information systems".

The Council of Australian Governments has yet to sign off on this $286m cost over four years.

The ambitious project is still in the planning stages, as the government has yet to consult consumers or the medical profession.

The lower house has passed legislation for mandatory health ID numbers -- known as Healthcare Identifiers -- to be assigned to every Australian next financial year. But patients will be able to decide if they want to activate the ID number, and can choose what information -- if any -- is stored on the electronic database.

Doctors and other health professionals, such as pharmacists, would need a patient's permission to log into the eHealth record, although the government has yet to draft legislation setting out how the scheme will work.

Health Minister Nicola Roxon said yesterday 190,000 Australians a year were admitted to hospital due to medication errors, costing the health system $660m. "About 8 per cent of medical errors are because of inadequate patient information," Ms Roxon said.

"Clear, quickly available information will reduce such incidents, avoid unnecessary tests and save scarce health resources."

Ms Roxon said patients would be able to show up at any doctor's surgery in the country and have their medical records available 'at the touch of a button.

"Patients will no longer have to remember every detail of their care history and retell it to every care provider they see," she said.

I don't know if you recall this nugget that I brought up before but this just confirms that it has definately reached the four winds.

http://prophezine.com/PZArticles/AUniqueIdfortheWorldByChristineHobson/tabid/1118/Default.aspx

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1259354/Thousands-jobs-axed-Government-plans-public-service-webpage-citizen.html?printingPage=true

http://worlduin.homestead.com/patent.html

You the people.....Are getting a chip.

From the N.Y Times today-

Everyone calls it a “green card,” but for many years the coveted identification that immigration authorities issue to lawful permanent residents has been variously pink, beige, blue, white — just about anything but green.

Now it will be, though that is the least high-tech feature of a redesign announced Tuesday by United States Citizenship and Immigration Services.

The new card, which will replace those now in circulation as they are lost or renewed, incorporates holographic images, laser engraved fingerprints and radio frequency identification chips that will allow Customs and Border Protection officers at ports of entry to read the card from a distance, immigration officials said.

“Among the benefits of the redesign: Secure optical media will store biometrics for rapid and reliable identification of the card holder,” the agency’s statement said.

Is this a preview of the biometric Social Security card that Senator Charles Schumer has proposed for all citizens who want to work, part of his outline for comprehensive immigration reform? Stay tuned.

How to sell Aadhar

The UID project has got a new name and logo, but the difficult part starts now

The ambitious Unique Identification (UID) number project has got a new identity and logo – something that brand experts have endorsed wholeheartedly. While the project has been renamed Aadhar, the new logo has the halo of the Sun on the imprint of a thumb.

Experts say this was required as a name like UID just couldn’t be of any appeal to a majority of its target audience – the marginalised people who will get a foolproof identity to claim various social sector scheme incentives. 

Kiran Khalap, co-founder, Chlorophyll, who is part of the five-member media advisory for the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), says, “We wanted a complex metrix of all the elements of UID in a simple name. Aadhaar encompasses all — its attribute, benefits and idea.”

Ranjan Bargotra, President, Crayons, agrees. “Aadhaar is so simple and indicative of the utility of the product. The new name will give the authorities a great creative platform to advertise it,” he says

Bargotra cites one of his very successful projects with the Delhi government. A few years ago, under the police-public partnership programme, Crayons was given a project aimed at connecting with the children of schools in slums to educate them about being responsible, fearless citizens and report their neigbourhood crime to the police. The agency executed the programme under the name “Nidar” (fearless). Bargotra says the name prompted a huge response from children. “After all, who doesn’t want to become a nidar?” he asks.

Harish Bijoor, brand-strategy specialist and CEO, Harish Bijoor Consults Inc, too says, “The one big meaning of Aadhar is the word “depend” and possibly “support”. To that extent, the name packs a lot of punch considering the UID project’s objective.

But now that the rebanding is over, the bigger task is how to sell the concept, considering the diversity challenges in India.

Bijoor says that the brand needs to be led visually and not through script. The brand needs visual mnemonics that are strong and easily identifiable. The current logo with the finger-print and sun holds good potential here. In addition to this, it is important to create a very powerful sound mnemonic for the brand —something that will identify the brand the moment the sound mnemonic is played. Take Doordarshan for instance. The moment the sound mnemonic plays, everyone understands.

A majority of the population in rural India emotes with the visual and the audio much more than written words. It is therefore important to invest in visual and audio mnemonics that are relevant, original and innovative.

Brand experts say allowing a villager – Dhaneshwar Ram – to unveil the brand name and logo was a great marketing innovation. “When Ram talked about the difficulties he faced in establishing his identity in his village in Azamgarh, Uttar Pradesh, even to procure a certificate of residency, there was instant empathy, which a project like this requires” says the head of an advertising agency.

UIDAI chairman Nandan Nilekani says the project will be marketed through media, advertisements, word of mouth, village posters etc. The UIDAI has studied other mass public change initiatives like polio awareness etc, to understand what has worked, he adds.

Brand experts say the trick also lies in using different branding strategies to appeal to diverse groups of people. The methods that work for young urban professionals, for example, would be lost on the rural poor.

UAE-Card Features and Looks

• Identification Number 
  
  
  

  The Identity Card is featured for its identification number known as the identity number which sticks with its holder forever. By this number, he may benefit from all the governmental and some of the non-governmental and private entities services, which require the identity evidence. The identity number is featured for its sole and un- repeated number. It includes 15 digitals

Card Features

The e- card has many features from which all the community individuals may benefit starting from safety and ending with the easy administrative services in addition to the feeling of attachment and contribution in building a modern and developed electronic government. The identity features may be summarized as follows:

• Sense of Belonging: the Identity Card helps creation of sense of belonging and proud among both UAE nationals and residents of the United Arab Emirates, which attempts to avail the best living levels for all the community individuals.
• Identity Protection: The Identity Card is a smart card which includes unique vital information for the identity holder such as his biological properties such as his fingerprint and electronic signature, the matter which guarantees protection of the personal identity thus reducing falsification possibilities and makes the identity a valuable instrument which strongly contributes in fighting crimes.
• Facilitation: being a unified identification document with all the UAE authorities, the Identity Card guarantees its holder obtaining the governmental and nongovernmental services with ease.
• Integrated Card: In the future, the Identity Card will replace the other documents and identification cards such as the labor card, health insurance card, driving license and Passport (for the nationals of U.A.E.) making it a practical and comprehensive card.
• Comprehensive Database: All individuals who obtain the Identity Card will be registered in the population registry of the Emirates Identity Authority, hence unifying the personal database of individuals with all the governmental departments through the electronic linking with the Authority, resulting in reduction of data management costs and enhancing the e-Government works, in addition to providing accurate and comprehensive demographic information assisting the State in its strategic planning process.

How the Identity Card looks like?

The Identity Card is not that different form the ordinary cards in volume such as the bank card for instance. It is a plastic card with an electronic chip which contains all the information on its holder and his biological characteristics. As shown in the form above, the identity holder name, his nationality, photograph, fingerprint and Identity Card number, which is consisted of 15 digitals, are appeared on the card front side, while the birth date, gender, signature sample of the card owner, number and the card validity appear on the back side. The other data do not appear on the card face and can not be read without the consent of the identity holder.

• Electronic Chip 

  It includes the personal data to be read automatically in usages that require the holder to provide an identity evidence and authentication. Some of these data are encrypted and only readable/writable/updatable by the authorized authorities in order to protect the privacy of data. This chip may store up to 32 thousand letters of information

  
  

  Card Utilizations- As of Today Usage

• The Identity Card can be used as a unified identification document with all the government, semi-government authorities and private entities. An individual may utilize it to obtain all the administrative services easily and promptly guaranteeing the highest levels of security and privacy
• UAE National may utilize the Identity Card as a traveling document to travel among the GCC neighboring countries
• The ID card can be used to logon to Computers and Access online services
• The ID card can be used for access control, signing electronic forms, and signing documents to protect it from being altered by others
• It is agreed with the Ministry of Finance to include the e-Dirham service to the Identity Card
• It is agreed with the Ministry of Interior to include the e-Gate service to the Identity Card
• The ID Card can be used on Abdu Dhabi e-Gov portal www.Abudhabi.ae to Authenticate your identity and get access to services

Future Usage

Thanks to the systems integration Emirates Identity Authority envisioning to achieve with various governmental, semi-governmental, and private sectors, it is expected to extend the identity utilizations in the future to include other domains especially after completion of the registration of all national and residents of the United Arab Emirates. The ID Card maybe utilized in the future to store other cards information or provide various applications as follows:

• Labor Card.
• Health Card and Health Insurance card.
• Electronic Portfolio.
• Commercial and Banking applications
• Driving License.
• Passport.
• In addition, the ID Card acts as an infrastructure to many applications and services to entities to use such as:
  • Public Libraries and rental stores to check out books, movies, games, cars, and others
  • Utilized to get access to exhibitions
  • Metro, public transportations

Include AP in Aadhar's pilot project: Rosaiah

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister K Rosaiah has requested the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) to include the state for the pilot project 'Aadhar' as it was ready with the resident data.

In a letter to UIDAI chairman Nandan Nilekani on Wednesday, Rosaiah said the state has been at the forefront in implementing e-governance projects and also has the distinction of being the first in the country in using biometrics for issue of ration cards to all families.

"The state has created a single integrated database covering about 82 million residents. This database can be the foundation for Aadhar as enrolment of all residents can be done right away in accordance with the demographic and biometric standards prescribed by the UIDAI," the Chief Minister noted.

He recalled that the state has already entered into a MoU with UIDAI for implementing the 'Aadhar' project while two districts Medak and Krishna have successfully completed the Proof of Concept under the project.

"Andhra Pradesh is keen to use 'Aadhar' to extend the benefits of various schemes and services to everyone, including people who have long been disadvantaged. I assure you that our government will extend all possible support and co-operation in making the project a grand success," Rosaiah added.

Aadhaar project not to take facial scans at face value

Facial biometrics, say experts, have a high failure rate (of 1 in 10 people). Recognising this danger, the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), which has been empowered to issue unique numbers or Aadhaars to the 1.2 billion residents of the country, has decided not to use the facial scan as a de-duplication device or primary biometric verification method.

UIDAI will scan three biometric characteristics of each individual — face, fingerprints and iris (coloured part of the eye). However, facial scans will be used to detect false matches only if the other two biometric scans fail to convince authorities about the identity of a person.

“Along with the demographic details of a person, the face will only find a place in our records,” Ram Sewak Sharma, director general and mission director of UIDAI, told Business Standard.

“The Aadhaar project will use the three big biometrics of face, fingerprints and the iris, but the face will not be used for primary matching or a primary biometric. Only in exceptional cases, where the eyes are obscured or fingerprints unprintable or worn out, will the face be used,” said Mark Crego, Partner (Chief Biometrics Architect), Accenture.

Crego pointed out there could be many similar faces. There is only 30 per cent accuracy in the face as a biometric and one needs manual checking to ensure accuracy. It was because of these problems that UIDAI decided to have another biometric — iris scan. The addition of iris to finger and facial biometrics would help achieve accuracy rates beyond 95 per cent, according to the authority.

UIDAI says collecting and de-duplicating biometrics of children is a challenge because face and finger biometrics are not stable until the age of 16. The lack of de-duplication of a child’s biometrics would require that the child’s unique identification (UID) or Aadhaar be linked to the parents’ UIDs in the database and the child’s ID is not issued on the basis of de-duplication of his/her biometrics.

This however, increases the risk of duplicates and fakes among UIDs for children. Such UIDs would represent a significant proportion of the UIDs issued, since the percentage of population below 15 years of age is 35.3 per cent according to the 2001 census.

The iris presents a potential means to issue the majority of children a unique number linked to their biometrics, since the iris stabilises at a very young age. Unlike fingerprints, iris is said to be fully developed at the time of birth itself.

“If we use iris besides the fingerprints, we would be able to reduce the size of our inaccurate UID sub-set due to the inability to de-duplicate from 35 per cent to 11 per cent, according to the 2001 census. Moreover, adding more biometrics will increase the cost of the project,” added Sharma.

A Aadhaar. Can you see the end in the beginning?

Some questions to ask yourself.

Just what is the "Mark" of this beast spoken of in Revelation in the Holy Bible? For centuries men have been on a mission to decipher, expound and even prophesy, believers and non alike. What this horrfiic number "666", how will it appear and be used by the False Prophet? How is the Antichrist going to come onto the World Stage and more important, when?

The new power is not money in the hands of the few, but information in the hands of the government.